Fiction that adds up, that suggests a "logical consistency," or an explanation of some kind, is surely second-rate fiction; for the truth of life is its mystery.

Ideas brush past fleeting and insubstantial as moths. But I let them go, I don't want them. What I want is a voice.

Before you can write a novel you have to have a number of ideas that come together. One idea is not enough.

Though I revise constantly as I write, I will usually revise much of the work again after I've reached the ending.

Criticism is, for me, like essay writing, a wonderful way of relaxation; it doesn't require a heightened and mediated voice, like prose fiction, but rather a calm, rational, even conversational voice.

The - the sort of thing that I want to do is to strike a resonant chord of universality in other people, which is best done by fiction.

Whoever was stupid was beneath worry or thought; you did not have to figure them out. This eliminated hundreds of people. In this life you had time only for a certain amount of thinking, and there was no need to waste any of it on people who were not threatening.